Pascals Law Experiment

Corey Sparrow, Jose Mijares, Tanner Lindle

Pascals Law Experiment

Corey Sparrow, Jose Mijares, Tanner Lindle

Pascal's Law:

Pascals law is a principle in fluid mechanics that states that pressure exerted anywhere in a confined incompressible fluid is transmitted equally in all directions throughout the fluid such that the pressure variations remain the same.

Origin

Pascal's law was first demonstrated and discovered by French mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum.

Experiment:

Purpose:

To easily test and demonstrate pascals law on a small scale.

Materials Needed

A water bottle

A rubber balloon

A rubber band

Matches/toothpicks

Procedure:

If using matches, cut off the heads of The match and put them in the bottle. Discard the wooden end.

Fill up water bottle completely

Cover the top of the water bottle (where the cap would go) with the balloon

Secure the ballon by tying the rubber band around the bottle

Press finger repeatedly on the opening that the balloon is covering

Repeat and record results

Observations during experiment

The toothpicks float to the top of the bottle at first and respond to each plush on the balloon. When we pushed down on the balloon, the tooth picks slowly sink to the bottom. When we stopped pushing down the toothpicks then slowly rose back up.

Proof of theory/results

The match heads moved down due to the pressure that is transmitted through the water. When the finger is pressed down on the part of the balloon connecting to the mouth of the bottle, a small quantity of water penetrates into each match head, which adds enough weight it causing it sink. When the finger is removed, there is air pressure inside the tooth picksheads to force out the water and make the match heads rise again. Because pascals law states that "pressure exerted anywhere in a confined incompressible fluid is transmitted equally in all directions throughout the fluid" Pascal’s Law is proven by the results.

Sources of error/how this experiment can be improved

Since we only used match heads as our material, our results may have been two dimensional. Our claim and proof of pascals law would be more credible if we used different materials in the water bottle to test the theory